There are good arguments for and against throwing Sanjay Dutt in the clink for possessing weapons. But why the big fuss about Sanjay Dutt in the first place? That's the power of movies, and movie stars. They inspire people to yearn and dream, and to do amazing things. They move people.That puts me in mind of a young man named Jameel Shah. I think about him three times a week anyway, when I strap on my tango shoes, but that's with gratitude for his shoe-making skills. This week I've been remembering his story.A small backgrounder: anyone who practises a dance form knows that a good pair of shoes is critical. They must be lightweight, flexible, secure around the toes and ankles, with strong heels and suede soles. Padding in the toes helps. A good pair of dance shoes makes the difference between a magical evening and a miserable one, and it's very hard to find a good pair in India.Mr Shah is the eldest of eight kids born to poor farmers in Bihar. He hopped on a train to Delhi when he was

Dreaming in Dharavi

Business Standard

I mentioned, last fortnight, that I'd quit smoking. Did I mention that I quit smoking? I've quit. I'm not smoking any more. I am liberated from the slavish habit that kills. I don't smoke. I am a non-smoker. I do not smoke. No thanks, I don't smoke.Everything is better! My carbon monoxide levels are down to zero. My damaged nerve endings have started to regenerate. My gums are zinging with circulating blood. My bronchial tubes are sipping pina coladas on the beach. My sinuses are clear. My brain acetylcholine receptor counts have down-regulated and receptor binding has returned to levels seen in the brains of non-smokers, hat-tip some website I got that from.So what if I'm a little snappy? It's a small price to pay for getting rid of the chronic cough and the hateful smelly weed for quite some time, now-approximately 26 days, nine hours, 34 minutes and 17 seconds. Not that I'm counting, because it doesn't matter, because I no longer smoke. I don't smoke. Get away from me. I do not smok

The small price of quitting

Their pictures in the papers stop you dead in your tracks - ripped bodies, tailored shirts, aviators, styled hair slick with gel. They look sharp, Salvatore & Massimiliano, and if that doesn't sound like a designer brand I don't know what does. If only they weren't fugitives from Indian justice at the centre of the current extremely large embarrassment known as the Indo-Italian relationship. Of course, if you're going to be fugitives, you may as well be cool ones.So, as everybody who has a pulse knows, the Italian marines were being detained in India, apparently in complete comfort at the Embassy, until someone figures out what to do about their killing of two Keralite fishermen. The marines were allowed to go home for Christmas provided they returned in January, which makes you wonder whether India might not be taking the whole human rights thing beyond the call of duty. Be that as it may, they returned as instructed. They were then allowed to go home again to vote - on the Italia

The Italian job

Delhi is not a nice place to live, weather-wise. We spend our time either battling hypothermia or being broiled alive. But it does have perfect weather for ten days a year, five days in October and five days in March, and these are them. Warm sun, cool breeze, jeans-and-t-shirt-and-flip-flops weather. Dust-free, rain-free, pollen-free. It's fabulous.These blissful days, unfortunately, are often spent fighting whatever illness you acquired in the ice age/broiler days. I, for instance, have an epic cough. It began 15 days ago as an innocuous little scratch in my throat. Then it gathered force and turned into a swirling system in my trachea, which eventually made landfall in my lungs. I coughed and coughed and coughed. I coughed up stuff that, if I'd coughed it up on a canvas, would have looked like a Jackson Pollock. It was green, yellow, and pepper grey. I coughed so much I couldn't sleep at night.I coughed so much that I could only croak.I coughed so much, in fact, that I stopped smoki

Coughers quit, quitters cough

Left field is getting weirder by the day. Comedian Beppe Grillo's improbable bid for the Italian prime ministership turns out not to be nearly as funny as it looked. His Five Star Movement (M5S), a protest party that from the point of view of traditional politics looks like one of his jokes, racked up astonishing popularity. The crazy-haired, loudmouthed Mr Grillo maintains that he won't countenance alliances with other parties, and winning Italy is a matter of complicated coalition-building, so it's not likely that he'll be prime minister  but he's in a position to play kingmaker over the next few days, while Italy flounders around trying to put something together and avoid another set of elections.In Israel, the clean-cut, photogenic television personality Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, turned out to be a major player in the Israeli elections three weeks ago. Mr Lapid is a popular news anchor whose face has been on Israeli television for over 10 years. He plays B

Mitali Saran: Send in the clowns

Iâ€™m convinced weâ€™re getting through February just by the skin of our teeth.First, my mother almost opened her third eye when she was woken up in the middle of the night by some drunken people whom I intend to defriend soon. You have no idea what a close shave that was. Then my niece Tara had an eighth birthday party with a temperature of â€˜Fourteen kids, feels like fortyâ€™. It featured something called feely goop, which is a doughy white substance that, when mixed with water and children, turns your house into a construction site at the plaster of paris stage.My takeaway from this party, by the way, was a reaffirmation that Tara is a genius way ahead of her time. I announced to her, in my smarmy aunty way, that I was going to take her shopping for a birthday present. She held my gaze neutrally. I ventured that perhaps she would prefer to be surprised? Yes, she said firmly. Okay, I said, can you tell me what category of present you would likeâ€”books, music

Feely goop, meteors and cops

Two weeks ago I wrote that anyone wanting to survive what Salman Rushdie calls Indiaâ€™sÂ â€œcultural emergencyâ€ will have to adopt the brace position â€” that is, agree to resist what has come to be seen as inevitable and not worth the trouble.Last week, the Delhi Art Gallery in Hauz Khas did just that. Displaying an exhibition called â€œThe Naked and the Nude â€” The body in Indian modern artâ€, when faced with a protest by members of the Durga Vahini â€“ foot soldiers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad â€“ they called for police protection, and for regular art viewers to show up.The protesters turned out to be about 30 very poorly informed people. Some, on the periphery, were under the impression that the exhibition displayed photographs of the Delhi gang-rape victim. These women became very rattled when informed otherwise, and directed questioners to the loudest people closest to the police barricades. Those women said that it was shameful the way womenâ€™s bod

Mitali Saran: Tough job, but somebody's got to do it

The only real-world advantage to being born in February is that once, in 1982, a furniture store in Switzerland held a sale where anyone born in February got a free office chair. My mother, who knows a good deal when she sees one, instantly attached herself to the scruff of my neck and my passport. We still have that chair. It looks as if famished hyenas have been gnawing on it for 30 years, but it works.There are no other advantages to being born in February â€” better weather, maybe, and a pretty purple birthstone (amethyst). Lately, though, my daily newspaper horoscope is promising me more benefits.Now, I'm aware that the daily newspaper horoscope is written by a valued member of the editorial team in an office space demarcated by the water cooler, the bathroom, and a medium-sized potted plant. This team member is skilled in the use of random-word-generating programmes. Here, for purposes of demonstration, is the result of using one:â€œYou will re

The Age of Aquarius

Every Republic Day is an opportunity for us to contemplate, amid the frankly show-offy roar of our newest fighter aircraft, some of the foundational beliefs of this country. Like that Republic Day must be a dry day. The founders of our great nation reasoned that if they could find a way to take the joy out of a day off, they had no excuse not to. So, while America celebrates the Fourth of July with as much beer as it is humanly possible to consume, India celebrates Republic Day (and Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti and all the other good one-off holidays) with as much beer as it is humanly possible to consume, bought the day before, because we are not idiots.

Happy Republic Day

Salman Rushdie found the perfect phrase when he said, during a recent television interview, that India is experiencing a cultural emergency. He&rsquo;s in a position to say this, having been prevented from attending last year&rsquo;s Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), warned against attending it this year, and banned from entering Kolkata for ... well, for being Salman Rushdie.

<B>Mitali Saran:</B> Adopt the brace position

Everyone leapt down Shashi Tharoor&rsquo;s throat when he suggested that India&rsquo;s sexual assault Bill be named after the Delhi gang-rape victim. I agree with him, as long as the family consents. I find the media&rsquo;s attempt to name her &ndash; Amanat, Damini, Nirbhaya, India&rsquo;s Daughter, Delhi&rsquo;s Braveheart &ndash; a nauseating attempt to appropriate a perfectly real and particular woman who had her own name, thank you very much. Her real name would serve as a battle cry against the kind of horror the law seeks to confront, and stand for the unprecedented public support for meaningful action against sexual crime that her ordeal has unleashed.

Mitali Saran: Let's talk about sex, baby

When I was 12 or so, my parents and I yelled at each other because they told me I couldn&rsquo;t wear shorts in the Delhi summer. I did anyway. When I was 16, we yelled at each other because they told me I couldn&rsquo;t hitch rides on trucks. I did anyway. (Those were possibly more innocent times.) When I was 20, we yelled at each other because they told me I couldn&rsquo;t go to a hotel coffee shop to have an after-dinner cup of coffee with a young man of my acquaintance.

Standing room only

The gang rape of a young student in Delhi on December 16 was only one of countless instances of the ugly misogyny endemic in Indian society. But it was a turning point in finally sparking a public conversation about India&rsquo;s gender attitudes that, at the one-month mark this week, has already defied cynical predictions about its longevity.

Mitali Saran: Young leaders, anybody home?

So there was an international tango festival in Delhi last weekend. Yeah, who knew? Two sets of visiting teachers variously from the US, Australia and Mongolia, tango dancers from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Auroville, London, New York and god knows where else. Who knew, right? We had four nights of social dances and three days of workshops for six hours each day. I wore dresses, which regular readers of this column know to be totally, unthinkably, fish-doing-surya namaskars-on-the-living-room-sofa-y whacko. Who the hell knew.

Third time's the charm

Two important 20th anniversaries took place this week: the two-decade anniversary of short message service, or SMS, on December 3, and the two-decade anniversary of the obliteration of the Babri Masjid by Hindu fundamentalists on December 6. The two events represented an inflection point in India (and perhaps the world). One blazed a trail into the future, building bridges between people all over the world, on the back of the universal laws of science. The other reverted to limbic bloodlust via a poisonous cocktail of religion and politics that has given us a permanent hangover.

Mitali Saran: Happy china anniversary

Does the name Nibiru strike fear into your heart? It should. It may sound like some yakuza who plans to stuff your Christmas stocking with your own fingers and toes, but it&rsquo;s much, much worse.

Apocalypse now-ish

The grotesque gang rape and torture of a young medical student in a bus in Delhi has done for Indian women what the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, three days beforehand, has done for the gun control debate in the United States: got the national attention. In both cases, the problem runs much deeper than the incident, and in both cases it remains to be seen whether nationwide horror will translate into meaningful change.

Mitali Saran: An opportunity in a tragedy

Once upon a time, I almost died. Well, I almost died twice, the second time being when my raft overturned in the freezing Zanskar river in Ladakh and I got caught underneath it &mdash; but the first time was at a Morisson concert in New York in the 1990s. Many more people than strictly necessary seemed to have shown up for the event, and just before the musician appeared on stage they turned off all the lights, and everyone got very excited and pressed forward in a great crush that almost powdered my sternum. Forcing my way out of that crowd is the closest I&rsquo;ve ever come to hand-to-hand combat.

To the barricades

The volume of press that a US election generates is just short of gross. Are you sick of it yet? Not me. I can&rsquo;t quite let go, because I&rsquo;m so relieved at the result.

Mitali Saran: 2012 vision

As a teenager, I secretly yearned to be an army officer. Maybe &ldquo;secretly&rdquo; is a bit of a stretch, since I made my army officer uncle take me to his tailor and got myself kitted out in a full set of fatigues, complete with name tag embroidered across the breast, and walked around like this in broad daylight without a shred of irony. I would go far, I reckoned, barring such technical hitches as my poor physical fitness and total inability to take orders. I would be a raving success.

General confusion

State funeral, body wrapped in tricolour, 21-gun salute, weepy television anchors, city shut down, encomiums from all the leading lights from politicians to industrialists to media people to Bollywood. Really, India? The mind boggles. An uninformed tourist parachuting in on Bal Thackeray&rsquo;s funeral would have been forgiven for thinking it was a send-off for a head of state, not a rabble-rouser who thrived on holding some Indians to be more equal than others.

Mitali Saran:Tiger, tiger, burning right

Bigg Boss season 18 is going to end next week, and for the first time in the show tickets to the finale remained unclaimed. The finale is set to take place on January 19, 2025

Bigg Boss Season 18

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], January 10: Manipal Hospital Whitefield launched a dedicated Paediatric Emergency Bay on Wednesday, 8th Jan 2025 within its emergency department, aiming to enhance the quality of care for young patients in a child-friendly and comforting environment. A significant step forward in enhancing paediatric care, this newly established facility will address the unique needs of young patients while ensuring timely and comprehensive medical attention.

A Step Ahead in Paediatric Care: Manipal Hospital Whitefield Launches Dedicated Paediatric Emergency Bay

November 2024 IIP growth marks an improvement from the 3.5 per cent growth recorded in October 2024

industry

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 10: Mpower, an initiative of the Aditya Birla Education Trust, has significantly enhanced the mental well-being of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), contributing to a remarkable 40% reduction in suicide rates since 2020. This achievement highlights the success of Project Mann by Mpower, a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) that addresses the unique mental health challenges faced by CISF personnel, including prolonged working hours, loneliness, interpersonal issues, financial stress, and high-pressure living conditions.

Mrs. Neerja Birla Initiative Mpower Strengthens CISF Mental Health, Driving a Significant Decline in Suicide Incidents

Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], January 10: GTPL Hathway Limited, India's largest Digital Cable TV Service Provider and a leading Broadband Service provider, announced its Financial Results for the Quarter ended December 31, 2024

GTPL Hathway Reports Stable Performance in Q3 FY25

Revenue for the company grew 5.6 per cent to Rs 63,973 crore in Q3 FY25. Sequentially, the firm's revenue declined by 0.4 per cent

Subrahmanyan's '90-hour workweek' formula is one step ahead of Infosys founder Narayan Murthy's suggestion of working 70-hours a week

SN Subrahmanyan

Stock Market Highlights: Indian markets declined for the second consecutive session, ending the week on a negative note on Friday. The 30-share Sensex slipped 241.30 points or 0.31 per cent

sensex nifty stock market share market

Veteran writer, poet and filmmaker Pritish Nandy breathed his last on Wednesday at the age of 73

Pritish Nandy

On a sequential basis, the profit after tax (PAT) grew 10 per cent over Rs 387.75 crore reported in Q2FY25

IREDA

The Milkipur Assembly seat fell vacant following the resignation of Awadhesh Prasad, who was elected MLA from the constituency during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections

Election

Bangar said that Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane have demonstrated their commitment by continuing to perform at the domestic level

Rahane sends Jaiswal off field for indiscipline during Duleep Trophy final

Ajinkya Rahane, Yashasvi Jaiswal

Amid death threats, Salman Khan has enhanced the security of his Mumbai house, Galaxy Apartment. He installed high-resolution cameras and bulletproof glasses

Salman Khan has enhanced the security of his Mumbai house, Galaxy Apartment.

Ponting believes that the pacer has the potential to turn the tide in India's favour from tough situations

Mohd Shami

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is also expected to gather up the unspent capex and allocation for the current fiscal to push for a massive spending effort in FY26

Countdown begins to Feb 1: FY26 Budget set to become a hallmark document

Challenging the decision of the Biden Administration to investigate the activities of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and his companies, an influential Republican lawmaker on Tuesday said such selective actions risk damaging critical alliance partners.
In a strongly worded letter to US Attorney General Merrick B Garland, Congressman Lance Gooden, member of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded answers on the Justice Department's selective prosecution of foreign entities and the potential harm such actions pose to US's global alliances and economic growth and that if there is any Geroge Soros connection to it.
The Department of Justice's selective actions risk damaging critical alliances with key partners like India, one of America's strongest allies in the Asia-Pacific region, Gooden said in his letter dated January 7.
Instead of pursuing cases with tenuous jurisdiction and limited relevance to US interests, the DOJ should focus on punishing bad actors at home, rather than chasing

Gautam Adani, Adani

The temporary work permits are the only real way to employ Indian immigrants in the US, since national caps make it nearly impossible for them to get a green card

H-1B Visa

Knowing Manmohan was one of the greatest privileges of my life. He showed me and everybody else what leadership and service truly mean

Manmohan Singh

The strong subscription aligns with grey market trends, as Standard Glass Lining's unlisted shares were commanding a premium of Rs 96 or 68.57 per cent over the upper end of the IPO price band

Mitali Saran

Mitali Saran

Page 11 - Mitali Saran

Dreaming in Dharavi

The small price of quitting

The Italian job

Coughers quit, quitters cough

Mitali Saran: Send in the clowns

Feely goop, meteors and cops

Mitali Saran: Tough job, but somebody's got to do it

The Age of Aquarius

Happy Republic Day

Mitali Saran: Adopt the brace position

Mitali Saran: Let's talk about sex, baby

Standing room only

Mitali Saran: Young leaders, anybody home?

Third time's the charm

Mitali Saran: Happy china anniversary

Apocalypse now-ish

Mitali Saran: An opportunity in a tragedy

To the barricades

Mitali Saran: 2012 vision

General confusion

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Bigg Boss Season 18: Vivian Dsena refused tickets to finale, here's why

A Step Ahead in Paediatric Care: Manipal Hospital Whitefield Launches Dedicated Paediatric Emergency Bay

Industrial production grows 5.2% in Nov, boosted by manufacturing growth

Mrs. Neerja Birla Initiative Mpower Strengthens CISF Mental Health, Driving a Significant Decline in Suicide Incidents

GTPL Hathway Reports Stable Performance in Q3 FY25

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TCS Q3 results: Net profit jumps 12% to Rs 12,380 cr, revenue swells 5.6%

L&T chairman asks employees to work 90 hours a week, company backs him

Stock Market Highlights: Sensex drops 241 pts, Nifty at 23,431; broader mkts sink 2%; TCS rallies 6%

RIP, Pritish Nandy: Bold, brash, brilliant, and a man for all seasons

Ireda Q3 results: Net profit rises 27% to Rs 425.35 crore, revenue up 37%